Dec 20, 2011
Super Meat Boy Blowing a Hadoken Through a Saxophone!
Super Meat Boy

Super Meat Boy Blowing a Hadoken Through a Saxophone!Did that headline get your attention? Good, because you should go and read this super-cool piece by Kill Screen's Lana Polansky about mechanics, practice, saxophone, jazz, and Street Fighter. (It also features the amazing illustration above, drawn by Daniel Purvis.)


"Hey," you may be thinking. "Doesn't Kirk write about that sort of thing too, sometimes even for Kotaku?" Why yes, curious reader, he does!


Wait, why the heck am I referring to myself in the third person? Ugh. Anyhow, Polansky's piece is tackling an angle near and dear to my heart, looking at how Street Fighter requires a strict, musical mastery of its systems before play is possible:


I can't imagine a more perfect example than Street Fighter for how a game system can treat practice and play. It not only demands a fairly profound understanding of how its mechanics work, but allows players to combine those mechanics in intriguing and unusual ways once they understand them. Once mastery is achieved, the feeling of play emerges.


From there it goes to a lot of super brainy places, like… the work of Hungarian psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Bit.Trip Beat and Super Monkey Ball.


It's a cool piece, and worth a read. Everyone we can get to start talking about music and games in this way is a win, as far as I'm concerned. The two have so much in common, we gotta get those crazy kids together more often.


Please Try Again [Kill Screen]


(Top illustration by Daniel Purvis)
Dec 15, 2011
Humble Indie Bundle 4 makes $1 million in a day
Super Meat Boy
Super Meat Boy
Humble Bundle 4 has made as much money in a day as Humble Bundle 3 did in a week. The total payments sum is shown live on the Humble Indie Bundle 4 front page (currently $1,261,341 and counting). The folks behind the bundle tell us that it took the last sale seven days to reach similar figures, adding that Humble Bundle customers have donated more than $3 million to charity in total so far.

The Humble Indie Bundle 4 is the most tempting bundle yet. You can pay anything for Super Meat Boy, Jamestown, Bit.Trip Runner, Shank and NightSky. If you pay more than the average donation (currently $5.36), you get Gratuitous Space Battles and Cave Story+. If the bundle keeps selling at this rate, it could hit the $14 million mark when it ends in 12 days time. Humble Bundle organiser Richard Esguerra is understandably quite pleased. "We're thrilled to see the gaming community respond so enthusiastically to this bundle, which has been about half a year in the making," he says.
Dec 13, 2011
Humble Indie Bundle 4 officially available
Super Meat Boy
HumbleBundle4
After peeking out from behind Steam's registry files earlier today, Humble Indie Bundle 4 has made its official debut. And yes, it's everything you hoped for. I mean, if this is what happens when the Bundle Wars heat up, I'm all for it.

To start off, there's Jamestown, Bit.Trip Runner, Super Meat Boy, Shank, and NightSky. I know, I know. Your piggy bank just let out a frightened squeal and then exploded. But there's more. If you beat the average price, the masters of the not-so-ancient art of indie bundling will throw in Cave Story+ and Gratuitous Space Battles. As of now, said average is just a spec over $5.00. So yes, take your piggy bank's charred ashes and make with the spending.
Dec 13, 2011
The New Humble Indie Bundle Might Be The Best One Yet
Shank

We've seen our share of Humble Indie Bundles over the past year or two—independent developers who gather under the "Humble" brand and release a bunch of their games priced at whatever people want to pay.


The latest one, Humble Bundle #4, might be the best one yet—for any price you want, you can get Super Meat Boy, Bit. Trip Runner, Jamestown, Shank and Nightsky. Pay more than the average price (currently tracking at $4.61 on the Humble Bundle site), you get Cave Story + and Gratuitous Space Battles as well.


There's no shortage of gaming to be done this December, but these are all great games, for a great price. And not only will you be supporting indie devs, you'll have the option to give money to either the American Red Cross or Child's Play.


Check out their (endearingly cheesy and reference-laden) trailer above. It's funny, I was quoting that bit from The Rock all last weekend for some reason.


Humble Indie Bundle #4 [Humblebundle.com]


Dec 13, 2011
Alan Wake PC and new Humble Bundle teased in Steam registry files
Super Meat Boy
Alan Wake
Some inquisitive fellows on NeoGaf have been raiding the Steam content registry for clues, and seem to have come across some entries suggesting that that Alan Wake may be heading to PC.

In further support of the Alan Wake PC release rumours, Just Push Start spotted an interview on Finnish site YLEX in which Aki Järvilehto from Remedy said "we have received feedback from a lot of PC gamers, and I have to admit that yes, we somehow ignored that. Let’s see if in the near future we could have some positive news to tell you about dating!" We love positive news about dating!

Way back in 2006, Alan Wake was the poster boy for Intel's Core 2 Duo CPU, and was regularly demoed on PC to show off its multi-threading tech. Then, all of a sudden, it became an Xbox 360 exclusive, and the PC version vanished. As a PC version was worked on heavily in the run up to its release, it theoretically shouldn't be too hard to resurrect it for a Steam release. It'd coincide nicely with the downloadable Alan Wake follow up story, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, which is heading to the Xbox 360 early next year.

It's not just Alan Wake haunting the Steam registry files. DIY Gamer have spotted evidence of a very tasty new Humble Bundle. The registry entry suggests that a new bundle may include Super Meat Boy, BIT.TRIP.RUNNER, Jamestown, Nightsky and Shank as a starting lineup, with Gratuitous Space Battles and Cave Story+ to be added after the bundle has kicked off. If accurate, that's a fantastic collection. How much would you pay for that bundle, and would you like to see Alan Wake come to Steam?
Dec 13, 2011
Next Humble Bundle Leaks, Is A Goodun
Super Meat Boy - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (John Walker)

He approves. Of meat.

Details of the next Humble Indie Bundle have once more leaked, because Steam’s Content Description Record Viewer Thingamie is so ludicrously easy for people to spy. And it looks like it’s going to be a bit of a corker, as spotted by DIY Gamer. In the pay-what-you-want collection it seems there will be Super Meat Boy, BIT.TRIP.RUNNER, Jamestown, Nightsky and Shank. That’s the first wave, and then there’s even better to get added in.

(more…)

Nov 28, 2011
Super Meat Boy Updated
Super Meat Boy - Valve
OS X version update:
-Fixed problem with PNGs loading in incorrectly causing warpzones with the retro palette to crash unexpectedly
-Fixed problem with chapters in Super Meat World having less than 20 levels not loading correctly
-Fixed problem with levels in Super Meat World chapters not being named correctly
-Fixed problem with not being able to exit the game via the menu
-Added buttonmap.cfg to install directory to allow for remapping of controls
-Removed Resolution and Fullscreen options from Settings Menu
-Added the ability to do full screen via the command line (-fullscreen)
-Added the ability to run 1920x1080 via the command line (-1920x1080)
Nov 25, 2011
Get 10 Great Indie Game Soundtracks for $1
Super Meat Boy

Get 10 Great Indie Game Soundtracks for $1Following in the footsteps of the Humble Indie Bundle, today only you can buy the Game Music Bundle for as much as you'd like to pay, from $1 to $10,000. (Yes, there is actually an option to pay ten grand.)


The soundtracks include most of the best indie game tracks from the past couple of years, including Danny B's killer Super Meat Boy OST, SoulEye's VVVVVV soundtrack, and C418's Minecraft: Volume Alpha. If you play $10 or more, you'll get seven bonus soundtracks, including the soundtracks from The Binding of Isaac and Extreme Road Trip.


Any way you slice it, that's a hell of a lot of music for very little dough. Even if you're participating in Buy Nothing Day, well… surely $1 towards independent game music composers wouldn't be the worst way to break your fast?


Indie Game Music Bundle [gamemusicbundle.com]


You can contact Kirk Hamilton, the author of this post, at kirk@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
Nov 25, 2011
Indie Game Music Bundle: 10 soundtracks for $1
Super Meat Boy
Indie Soundtrack Bundle
The Steam sale is doing a good job of expanding our game collections, but what about our ears? They need entertainment too. The Indie Game Music Bundle is here to help. You can pay what you want above a dollar for the collection, which includes sountracks from ten games, including Minecraft, Super Meat Boy, VVVVVV and Cobalt, from artists like C418, Souleye, danny B, Jake "virt" Kaufman. Find the full list below, with links to each album page, where you can listen to samples of many of the tracks on offfer.

The Indie Game Music Bundle includes:

Minecraft
Cobalt
Super Meat Boy
Impostor Nostalgia
Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion
A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda
Return all Robots!
Mighty Milky Way / Mighty Flip Champs
VVVVVV
Tree of Knowledge

 
The deal is available "for one day only," so grab it soon if you're interested.
Nov 25, 2011
OST(erity) Cuts: Indie Music Bundle
Super Meat Boy - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Adam Smith)

My girlfriend just asked: "Is that the logo? It's weird." I told her it was a box with music exploding out of it and she said: "Oh. So it's not weird then?" Satisfied.

Here’s an indie bundle with a difference – it doesn’t contain any games. Instead, the Indie Music Bundle it’s a collection of soundtracks from some of your favourite (assumption #1) indie games and some you have probably never heard of (assumption #2). As is swiftly becoming obligatory, the ten albums are available at a price of your choosing, although this is for one day only, being a Black Friday sale. The minimum price is $1 and if you pay at least $10 you’ll receive seven bonus items.

Of the ones that I know, the VVVVVV soundtrack is simply wonderful, and both Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac, are quite enjoyable. The latter is in the $10 bonus items. Even if you opt to be stingy, for a dollar you’re sure to find something that you love (assumption #3). Everything is DRM-free and delivered as 320kbps MP3s. Take a look.

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